“In this important book Inderpal Grewal shows how the idea of the exceptional American citizen has emerged to replace the exceptional state. The improvement of self and racial Others, the oldest colonial game, now comes dressed up in late twentieth-century feminist clothing, making feminism itself an imperial formation. Tracing the emergence of the exceptional citizen through saving and surveillance, Grewal highlights how empire today is made possible, as it always has been, through the operation of patriarchy.” — Sherene Razack, author of, Dying from Improvement: Inquests and Inquiries into Indigenous Deaths in Custody

“This electrifying book makes a crucial contribution to feminist theory, the study of transnational capitalism, and the history of the security state. Thinking through the position of women and children, the construction of masculinities and patriarchy, and the complicity of certain forms of feminism, Inderpal Grewal offers an expansive, passionate critique of the United States as a global power. Timely, impressively researched, and brilliantly argued, Saving the Security State powerfully speaks to our moment.” — Melani McAlister, author of, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945

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Description

In Saving the Security State Inderpal Grewal traces the changing relations between the US state and its citizens in an era she calls advanced neoliberalism. Marked by the decline of US geopolitical power, endless war, and increasing surveillance, advanced neoliberalism militarizes everyday life while producing the “exceptional citizens”—primarily white Christian men who reinforce the security state as they claim responsibility for protecting the country from racialized others. Under advanced neoliberalism, Grewal shows, others in the United States strive to become exceptional by participating in humanitarian projects that compensate for the security state's inability to provide for the welfare of its citizens. In her analyses of microfinance programs in the global South, security moms, the murders at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and the post-9/11 crackdown on Muslim charities, Grewal exposes the fissures and contradictions at the heart of the US neoliberal empire and the centrality of race, gender, and religion to the securitized state.

About The Author(s)

Inderpal Grewal is Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. She is the author of Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms and Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel, and coeditor of Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism, all also published by Duke University Press.